


Double Vision

by equestrianstatue



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-28
Updated: 2014-01-28
Packaged: 2018-01-10 10:10:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1158381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/equestrianstatue/pseuds/equestrianstatue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One night, two pairs of eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Double Vision

**Author's Note:**

> First posted to lifein1973 in September 2008.

Every pride has its alpha male, every town its sheriff, and every Railway Arms its Gene Hunt. Or something like that. In retrospect, Gene reckoned that there was only one Railway Arms, and only one Gene Hunt, or at least only one of each that mattered. But the point still stood. More importantly, Gene was awake and aware, at the tail-end of a long day, and quite indecently sober.

But not for long. Within ten minutes there were a pleasing number of empty glasses spreading out across the table, a transparent invading army conquering the kingdom of lacquered wood, and soon enough Ray had pulled out a deck of cards. Chris – to everybody's surprise, including his own, frankly – won the first round, scooping up coins with a haste that suggested he was worried they'd disappear any moment; and it was then, as Ray gave Chris a clap to the shoulder that made him drop half his winnings, that Gene saw Tyler. Leaning on the bar, air of detachment almost palpable and definitely ridiculous, like somebody in a school play trying to act as lonely as possible within the confines of an incredibly crowded pub.

Gene was having none of it. "Sam."

Sam blinked, snapping out of a reverie that he really had no need to be in. "Guv."

It was stupid, Sam's insistence, vocal or otherwise, that he didn't want to be here, because here he was, night after night, downing Scotch and muttering nonsense at Nelson, and nobody was making him do that. Gene was annoyed by it, constantly, his refusal to give in and enjoy himself. Life's hard, so you deal with it and you make the most of all the moments of pleasure you can; but Sam seemed to reach a stumbling block after 'deal with it'. And yet – and maybe this was even more stupid – in tandem with that annoyance, Gene felt sorry for him, equally constantly. It wasn't a particularly emotional sort of sorrow; just a case of looking at a man who didn't seem to laugh and smile half as much as anybody else, and thinking that it must be a difficult way to live.

But then: wasn't Sam just causing that difficulty himself? And so Gene's cycle went on and on, annoyance, pity, annoyance, pity. Tonight, pity won out.

"You in?" asked Gene, with all the compassion he could muster.

Sam's eyes flicked round the table, the drinks, Chris's bobbing form as he retrieved still-spinning coins from the floor, smacking them down with his hand. Everything in Sam's expression said that this was beneath him, but still: "I'm in."

If it would stop him moping, Gene was all for it.

Chris dealt, inexpertly. Gene won the next round, which meant that the world was back to its natural order. Ray won the next, then Gene again, then Sam, and then Sam, and then Sam, and if a hat-trick didn't cheer a man up, Gene didn't know what in the world could.

"Beginner's luck tonight, I think," said Ray, with a vaguely concealed emotion that didn't seem to be able to decide whether it was envy or contempt.

"What makes you think I'm a beginner?" Sam asked.

"Dunno. You never play."

"I'm playing now, aren't I?"

Chris interrupted, cheerful and oblivious. "Hey, you want to tell Cartwright you can do three in a row and she'll be all over you before teatime."

Sam rolled his eyes. Sense of humour surgically removed, and painfully, too, by the look of it, sour little expression on his face. He stayed for two more rounds and did badly in both, and Gene could feel him slipping away from them – and then rather abruptly announced he was out for a while.

Gene downed the last of his drink. "Come on, Sam, you want to win it back or lose it all, don't hover halfway."

"Hovering halfway is my speciality."

"Suit yourself," said Gene, and folded his arms, and so Sam swanned off in that way he had that made you feel confused and incredibly irritated all at the same time.

*

It didn't go like that.

*

What?

* 

It didn't go like that.

*

Bloody well did.

*

For a start, there were plenty of ways in which 'not wanting to be here' and 'drinking heavily and frequently' could co-exist, not that Gene would know, since the latter seemed to be his foremost expression of contentment. But that was beside the point. Sam had been the first one into the pub, as it happened, the day long and tiring and his mood not the best, and not improved by Gene interrupting a particularly morose train of thought by barrelling through the door and demanding alcohol and company at a volume higher than strictly necessary.

Sometimes Sam would look at Gene, up and down, and take in all his faults and foibles, and still come out of it thinking: it could be worse. This was not one of those times. Gene just registered as loud and obnoxious and seemingly ever-present, and Sam wondered why he was there, right there in the pub, and should he go back to the flat, god, just some peace and quiet –

"You in?"

And yet somehow, through all this, the greater impulse in Sam was to say yes, and it never ceased to puzzle him.

He settled into the rhythm of the game unthinkingly, a round to Gene, a round to Ray, a round to himself – and then another, and another, and Sam was slightly surprised, to be perfectly honest, but he wouldn't have shown it. Part of him was inordinately pleased, too, to be winning a fictional card game against fictional people, effectively beating his own brain. A stupid response, and no reason to be proud, so Sam gathered up his third winning hand with annoyance at himself for his lapse into caring.

"Beginner's luck tonight, I think," sneered Ray, somewhere on the outskirts of Sam's consciousness.

"What makes you think I'm a beginner?"

"Dunno. Only you're usually too busy moping like a pansy and staring into your drink to play."

"I'm playing now, aren't I?"

Chris's voice sailed over them both before Sam could summon up the energy to get properly irritated. "Hey, you want to tell Cartwright you can do three in a row and she'll be all over you before teatime."

Sam rolled his eyes, wondering if he'd reached the point where this was just an ingrained response to other people's laughter, and quietly bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from smiling. Try to keep some standards, for god's sake.

His luck took a downturn in the next two rounds, not that he was that bothered; more importantly, he saw Annie push through the doors towards the end of the second one, and announced himself out.

"Come on, Sam, you want to win it back or lose it all, don't hover halfway," said Gene, like this sort of thing really mattered.

"Hovering halfway is my speciality," said Sam, already standing up. Hovering halfway. I am the halfway hoverer, hovering hoovers halfway between heaven and hell. Sam wondered how many drinks he'd got through, and if it could possibly be more than he'd realised, but pushed the thought to one side with his chair and wandered over to the bar to get Annie's drink for her.

*

Exactly, that's what I said.

* 

More or less.

*

So back to where we were before this all got needlessly interrupted: Tyler had mooched off to airy-fairy land, or to the bar, or something, and Gene was winning quite spectacularly at the card table. There we go. Only it was still niggling at him, Sam refusing to get off his high horse; he might have sat down with them but he hadn't been entirely there.

It was Gene's turn to deal. "Is the boy wonder coming back, or what?"

"Don't think so," said Ray. "He's with his plonk."

He was, too; Gene craned his neck uncomfortably until he could see the bar, Tyler and the girl leaning against it. "More fool her," he said, and that was that.

*

That wasn't that, unfortunately. Sam was in the middle of really quite a pleasant conversation when Gene deigned to stumble into it in an unhelpfully literal manner.

"Careful, sir," said Annie, only a hint of amusement in her voice, as Gene's footing slipped on a spilled drink, his elbow crashing down onto the bar beside them as he steadied himself.

"Thank you, love, I can take care of myself, but I'll ask if anything needs a rub."

"Did you want something?" cut in Sam.

"A smile on your bloody miserable face, just for once," said Gene, brushing down his jacket. "Would be nice. And another of the same," he added, to a passing Nelson.

"Have you ever been happy just to let someone be?"

"No," said Gene, stoutly.

*

Interrupting here to say that Gene handled this situation with far greater poise and charm than some narrators would lead you to believe.

"No," he said, because leaving things be was for the faint-hearted. "Cartwright here's got the right idea. Always by your side, trying to spark a bit of life into you, eh?" And by god, Sam needed whatever she could give him.

"Something along those lines," agreed Cartwright, because she was a good girl like that. "Though I was just going, actually."

Sam gave Gene a look that he certainly didn't deserve in any way. Wasn't his bloody fault the girl had better things to do, and frankly he wasn't that surprised. Spend too long working on Tyler and you feel the wasted time starting to claw at you. So what am I still doing here, he wondered, for a split second, and then decided it wasn't important.

Definitely not important: we were talking about the girl abandoning her poor lovestruck Romeo, except not really, because they'd see each other the next morning, and Gene had no idea why Tyler seemed to think it was his fault. She'd gone by this point, and Gene had missed where she was going – probably something to do with make-up or dancing – and Sam's mouth was a straight hard line across his face.

But he still followed Gene to an empty table.

"Can't keep away really, can you?" said Gene.

"Evidently not." Sam stretched a little against the back of the seat – Gene would go so far as to call it relaxation – and gestured to the pub, the first lightweights already departing, leaving a little more breathing place for the serious and seasoned. "Who else am I supposed to talk to?"

"Exactly," said Gene, sensibly.

*

"Who else am I supposed to talk to?" asked Sam. There were plenty of answers to give to that, actually, but most of them were gone or busy or electronic, and it was too late to retract the question, and Gene didn't look like he was at his most astute anyway.

"Exactly," confirmed Gene, nonsensically.

Sam closed his eyes for a minute and just tried to drop everything: all the thoughts and the irritations and the questions, existential and mundane alike. When he opened them, Gene gave him only a slightly funny look and said, "Well, you can buy me another one, then."

And inexplicably, Sam was happy.

*

And understandably, Gene was happy.


End file.
